Psalm 146:1-10 vs. “Psalm 146 (English Standard Version)”

Why it matters

A whole psalm keeps the parts a shorter praise song would leave out. Here that means verses 3 and 4, where the psalm tells you not to trust princes, because a man dies and his plans die with him. A praise song that keeps those verses is praising God against something, not in the air.

It also keeps the grounds. Verses 7 to 9 name nine groups God helps: the oppressed, the hungry, prisoners, the blind, those weighed down, the righteous, foreigners, the fatherless and the widow. The same three verses name one more, the wicked, whose ways God frustrates. That list is the psalm's argument for praising. Take it out and the word praise is left standing with nothing under it.

Helpful comparison

Where a listener meets the version is not the same in every place, and that is worth noticing. On Spotify the track is titled "Psalm 146 (English Standard Version)". On YouTube the video is titled “The Corner Room - “Psalm 146” (Lyric Video)” and the version sits in the description, in the Crossway permission line. On the artist's own album page the track list prints "Psalm 146" and nothing after it. All three are honest. Only the streaming title puts the version where nobody has to go looking.

The album also labels its own extent. Partial settings carry verse ranges in their titles: "Psalm 88:1-7", "Psalm 88:8-18", "Psalm 119:105-112". Whole settings carry no range. "Psalm 146" carries no range, and Psalm 146 is ten verses long.

How the check was run. The official lyric video's description carries the sung text line by line, above the Crossway permission notice, and that notice says the lyrics are from the ESV. The posted text was set beside the ESV of Psalm 146 verse by verse. All ten verses are there, in order, with nothing added and nothing dropped, and the renderings that mark the ESV out from other versions are present in verses 3, 4, 6, 8 and 9. What a posted text cannot show is whether a line is repeated for musical shape, the way the Psalm 88 setting repeats one.

One caution about the corroboration, so it is not read as more than it is. The Volume III album page names no translation at all. The artist's front page does say the project sets Scripture to music verbatim from the ESV, but that sentence introduces a later collection than this album. And of the four earlier Corner Room proofs on this site, only the Psalm 88 one compared the words against a transcription. The weight here rests on this entry's own comparison and on the video description, not on a chain of prior audits.

Sources

• The Corner Room — official site · (Adam Wright, music minister at Cahaba Park Church since 2013; the front page says the project sets Scripture to music verbatim from the ESV Bible, in a sentence introducing a later collection than this album)
• Psalm Songs, Volume III — album page · (track list: "Psalm 146" first, with no verse range, alongside "Psalm 88:1-7" and "Psalm 119:105-112" which carry ranges; the page itself names no translation)
• Spotify — "Psalm 146 (English Standard Version)" · (exact track title, version named in the title)
• Spotify — Psalm Songs, Vol. 3 · (album)
• Apple Music — Psalm Songs, Vol. 3 · (release date 10 December 2021; ℗ 2021 The Corner Room; ten songs, 37 minutes)
• The Gospel Coalition Australia — Kingsley Davidson review, 13 May 2022 · ("all the Psalms are taken verbatim from the ESV translation"; the opening track described as rhythmic and energetic)
• The Corner Room — "Psalm 146" lyric video · (official channel upload, published 9 December 2021, 4:09; oEmbed returns author_name "The Corner Room", channel @TheCornerRoomMusic; the description carries the sung text line by line and, below it, the ESV permission line from Crossway Bibles)